The Skin She's In by Margo Collins (online e book reader .txt) 📕

want. If all they want is a way to get through the Earth-magic portal, then that’s the closest one around,” I said. “They’re almost stuck having to go through the NICU.”

“Yeah,” Kade said. “If they hadn’t gone through once already, I’d almost laugh—it’s one of the most secure areas of the hospital.”

“But they did get one baby through,” I said, my voice turning solemn.

I checked my texts for responses.

“Tomás is meeting us there, as well as Shadow and Jeremiah.” I was amazed at how quickly the people I had access to responded when I needed them.

Between growing up not knowing about any other shifters at all and discovering that my race was feared and hated, it always came as a surprise to realize that I had as many friends and allies as I did.

I sent a tiny thankful prayer up for them.

We hit the hospital entrance at a run, dashing down halls and corridors that had been cleared specifically for us.

When we got to NICU Room Five, though, everything was entirely quiet.

I didn’t know the nurse on duty, but she seemed nice enough—nothing in her appearance, scent, or heat signature suggested that she harbored me or the two new babies any ill will.

“So there wasn’t an attack here?”

My frantic question made her forehead crease. “No. It’s been quiet all day.”

As we reported in that everything was clear, and other teams across the hospital began doing the same, the sense of oddness grew.

“What’s going on here?” Eduardo asked, his brow furrowed as he, too, walked into the NICU a few minutes later.

I circled the magical rift in the world to check it for anything unusual.

Nothing.

Then I circled it again, this time drawing the sparkling energy into myself just enough to send it questing out, searching for what was wrong.

“Oh, no,” I whispered. “No. No.”

“What?” Kade asked. I glanced around the room at all the guards we had here to take care of two infants, to protect them.

Just them.

“Take me back to Janice’s,” I said.

Something flickered in Eduardo’s eyes as he stared at me. I shook my head. “No. Stay. I’ll go check on things there. You make sure everything’s safe here.

“Keep in touch,” Kade said to the Shield. Eduardo nodded.

I sent texts to Janice all the way back.

She never responded.

When we got to back to her house, everything seemed perfectly calm from the outside.

I almost breathed out a sigh of relief. Most of the cars were gone, as if everyone who had still been there when we left had departed peacefully.

That illusion lasted until I got halfway up the path to the front door.

Even in my human form, I could smell blood all the way out here.

But I had to see it for myself.

Kade grabbed my arm as I reach for the door—but he knew better than to try to stop me from going inside. “Stay with me. Don’t touch anything. Don’t track anything.”

I knew he meant don’t track blood anywhere.

But I couldn’t think it.

I couldn’t think anything.

Right inside the entryway was clear, and for half a heartbeat I allowed myself to believe that maybe everything would be okay.

Then I took two more steps in, far enough to see into the living room.

It was a bloodbath.

Every shifter who had spoken out for me—all the ones who had not left with us to go back to the hospital—were all there. Dead.

I’ve seen blood before. A lot of it.

But not like this.

What happened here was a slaughter, with no reason other than naked ambition.

It left me reeling.

And then I saw Kelly.

It looked like she had tried to jump in front of Janice to protect her. And Kelly had been ripped in half for her trouble.

The wolves have been more careful with Janice. They wanted to make sure she was recognizable, at least her face.

They had planted her head atop a pile of disembodied pieces. Like a small offering laid there, waiting for me.

And this time, I planned to retaliate in kind.

Chapter 35

I WAS ALREADY IN MY serpent form and headed back out the door when Kade’s voice and words finally penetrated. “Lindi, they’re at the hospital. They’re going after the babies now.”

It was enough to convince me to shift back into my human form, wrap my clothes around myself, and make my way to the truck.

For the second time in a row, the hospital was on total lockdown when we arrived.

I shoved through the doors, blowing them so wide open in my rage that one of them shattered.

The sound of my vows beat in time with my pulse.

They killed Janice. They will not kill my babies.

One of the wolves who had been in Janice’s living room when Frank started giving his speech was out in the waiting room with a number of other patients.

I assumed he had been involved in the plan, if not the execution—some demented part of my brain laughed morbidly at the double entendre of execution.

I didn’t stop to consider whether there were human patients in that waiting room or if my actions might have an effect beyond this moment.

I simply reached out with one hand and applied every ounce of my serpent strength to his neck, squeezing the life out of him, like a constrictor preparing to eat prey.

I don’t know if the humans could even tell he was dead—I kept dragging his body with me until we were away from non-shifter eyes, then I dropped it on the floor unceremoniously.

As we got closer, I could see that there were several half-shifted wolves fighting to get into the NICU.

I slammed my way through them even as I shifted, breaking wolfmen and dropping them for as long as I had hands to do it with.

And then I broke down the doors of the NICU. Only the knowledge that there were children inside those rooms kept me from knocking down the walls as I went.

But when I got to Room Five, I discovered that Frank and some of his other wolves had used the back entrance and broken